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Palworld maker vows to fight Nintendo lawsuit on behalf of fans and indie developers
(www.eurogamer.net)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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Half of Pokémon are heavily inspired by artist's (who are not affiliated with Nintendo) illustrations of popular Yokai (Japanese mythological creatures). The rest are simply animals with very generic additions. "It's a cow but bipedal" "It's a kangaroo but with horns" "It's a pigeon but... actually yeah it's just a pigeon. No difference."
How can you copyright/patent that? It's hardly original.
I say this as someone who grew up loving Pokémon.
It's a patent case. It has nothing to do with the creative design of the games.
But yes. Every pokemon is copyrighted. Every pal is copyrighted. (In the US) All creative work is automatically copyrighted to the creator.
You can't copyright "a standing lizard with a small flame on its tail" but you can copyright Charmander. If you copy enough elements that a lay person can't distinguish the original and the copy then it opens it up for a copyright claim.
None of that is relevant in this case.
A patent is to protect a specific invention from being copied. In this case, there is an innovative game mechanic that Nintendo patented has that Palworld copied. The speculation is with throwing an item that captures a character that fights other characters in a 3d space.
The patent is dumb. Personally I don't think it is innovative or special enough to be patented. Patenting software or game mechanic are dumb anyway.
How long do patents last for anyway? Pokemon being caught in balls must be many, many decades old by this point.
20 years.
But it isn't the original system. It's the implementation done is Legends Arceus.